


Five Bets Sergeant Glicksohn Lost in a Single Afternoon (And One He Always Wins)

by Rosie_Rues



Category: Valor Series - Tanya Huff
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 19:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/299409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosie_Rues/pseuds/Rosie_Rues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He'll get over it," Ressk said, clacking his teeth. "Join the Marines, see the universe, lose your faith in higher powers."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Bets Sergeant Glicksohn Lost in a Single Afternoon (And One He Always Wins)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aderam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aderam/gifts).



_1\. There is nothing a Krai won't eat_

"What kind of planet grows them that fukking big?" Mike grumbled, wiping sweat off his forehead and poking his toe into the dead monster's side. It creaked under his foot, with an alarming splintering noise.

A snicker from behind told him that at least one of his squad was paying attention.

"Bigger than a fukking Dornagain," Mashona agreed. "And Dornagain don't have leaves."

"Has anyone ever seen a Dornagain fuk?"

All the di'Taykan let out a speculative hum, and then Haysole said, "Do you think they always like it slow?"

"Yeah," Mysho flashed back. "Just like _all_ Katriens purr when you stroke their-"

"All right," Mike cut in hurriedly. "Shift this whatever the hell it is out of our way."

"Reckon it's an Ent, Sarge," Hollice said, rubbing the back of his neck as he surveyed the carcass, which was oozing green blood from the cracks in its bark. "Maybe if we get a rope around its roots-"

"Feet," Haysole corrected demurely.

"..we can drag it out of the way."

"Wouldn't need to drag it anywhere if someone hadn't gotten trigger-happy," Mysho grumbled.

"Fuk you," Mashona grumbled, scrambling back up the bank behind them. "And that wasn't an offer. Nothing that looks like shrubbery should move that fast or have claws that big."

This _serley_ craphole of a planet was supposedly the Others' foothold in the ST1/45R1 system. So here were Sh'quo Company, up to their asses in jungle with not an Other in sight but more than the usual compliment of aggressive local wildlife.

"Hey, Hollice," a cheerful voice asked below him. "What's an Ent?"

"Reference to an Old Earth epic – Ents were walking trees."

"First I've heard of them," Mashona muttered, pokking at the dirt beneath her feet with the end of her rifle.

"Yeah, and how did they move the fukkers on Old Earth?"

"Damned if I know."

"Sarge," Mashona said and there was something in her voice that brought his shoulders up and had him scanning the horizon automatically.

"What?"

"This hill is made of plastic."

"Is it ticking, shaking or in any way showing signs that it's about to blow up?"

"How the fuk should I know? It's alien plastic."

Mike sighed and tongued his implant to contact Captain Rose.

Below him, Haysole, poised on a sloping branch, asked, "So, these Ents, did they grow from seed or do they have bits?"

"I don't care how flexible you are-" Hollice started and Mike stopped listening again.

Ten minutes later, he slid back down the slope. "Hurry it up. Captain Rose wants us back."

"We're trying, Sarge. Can't you two eat your way through it?"

For the first time, Mike realised that neither of the Krai had spoken since Mashona shot the Ent.

"It's not _chrick_ ," Ressk said flatly.

There was a sudden silence as every marine in the squad swung around to stare at him. Ressk folded his arms and glared back. Beside him Hrish, new recruit and until now no stupider than most first tour greenies, was quivering and muttering under his breath. Oh, _fuk,_ Krai were tree dwellers and Hrish probably hadn't even seen the ground until he joined up.

"What's wrong with him?" Haysole asked, hair waving with curiosity.

"He's got religion," Ressk said and reached out to slap Hrish around the back of the head.

"Private Hrish," Mike snapped at Hrish, imbuing his voice with just enough emphasis to remind Hrish that he was a Marine, "Get your grubby little hands on the end of a rope and _pull_."

"And if you don't want to pull on the rope," Haysole said brightly, "I've got something much better in my pants."

"Keep it there or I might bite it off," Hrish snarled but his hands were on a rope now so Mike left them to it and waved Ressk to one side.

"Tell me," he muttered, "that Mashona did not just shoot his god."

"He'll get over it," Ressk said, clacking his teeth. "Join the Marines, see the universe, lose your faith in higher powers." He shrugged at the Ent, which was slowly being dragged aside. "Do you think it has friends?"

"Oh, I know it does," Mike said, and raised his voice for a moment to bellow, "Stop posing and put your back into it, Mysho!" Then, dropping back to normal conversation level. "Current theory at base is that we're standing on an Other food depot. Whole place is divided into little square habitats full of-"

"Fresh meat," Ressk finished and then added, voice very flat again, "The Others eat _shaktai?_ "

Mike considered that for a moment. "Ressk, tell me Mashona didn't shoot _your_ god."

The sneer he got in response was reassuring, but when they finally heaved the Ent out of their path, he noticed that Hrish wasn't the only one who stepped very carefully around its splintered remains.

 

 _2\. There is nothing Private Mashona can't shoot_

Half an hour later, the terrain changed again, and it suddenly got warmer. The trees began to increase in height, their tops broadening into a wide canopy. Curling lianas hung down like lace and the light, filtered through the canopy, grew increasingly green and dim.

"Pretty," Mysho remarked, hair lifting in a lazy frill as bright as the flowers hanging from the vines.

"Tasty," Hrish corrected, his mouth full.

"Still hostile territory," Mike reminded them. "Put your helmets back on."

He was met with grumbles and then Juan Checya dropped back to fall in beside him. "Hey, Sarge, you owe me twenty markers."

"The hell I do."

"The Krai wouldn't eat the Ent, Sarge." Checya held out his hand hopefully.

Mike rolled his eyes. "Say that five times fast. I'll pay you when we get back to base."

"That's assuming we both get back in one piece."

"I've always thought your overwhelming optimism was a character flaw, Juan."

"Come on, Sarge, pay up."

Mike sighed and was about to keep arguing when someone shouted, "Incoming!"

Everyone dropped and rolled, even as Mashona yelled, "They're hummingbirds!"

There was a hissing noise in the air above them and suddenly a gob of something slammed overhead and hit a tree with a faint splunking sound.

The tree exploded.

Five bright yellow birds hummed overhead so fast they looked like little more than blurs.

"They're turning," Mysho yelled and Mike saw a flash of her hair above the undergrowth as she bobbed up.

"Mysho, put your helmet on!"

The air was already full of KC fire, but the returning buzz of the birds was getting louder.

"Mashona!"

"The light's too bad, Sarge!"

"Did I ask you for excuses, private?"

Her gun blazed out, and three yellow blurs dropped into the undergrowth. The other two kept coming.

Mashona fired again and another blur dropped. The last swerved around a tree and kept coming, weaving through the gloom. Mashona focussed, face calm and still.

The hummingbird spat at her gun.

Mashona looked down at the shining glob sliding down the barrel, eyes wide. Then she turned, and threw the gun hard over her shoulder.

"Cover!" Mike bellowed for her and they all dropped.

When the smoke cleared, they were lying in a patch of smouldering splinters of wood and greyish plastic, with sunlight streaming down on them through a hole in the canopy.

"Report!"

He got all the shaky responses he had been hoping for, with some extra cursing from an idiot di'Taykan with splinters in her hair. Cautiously, he sat up.

Above him, something buzzed.

He looked up slowly, to see a small yellow blob hovering above him. As he reached for his gun, it chirped at him, a succession of shrill noises which sounded like a Rakva scolding.

"Sarge," Hrish asked. "Is it _talking_ to us?"

 

 _3\. There is nothing a human won't bet on._

"Fukking typical," Checya grumbled as they pushed their way through the undergrowth. "How come we get the flame-spitting hummingbirds?"

" _Hreeeee-sak poi!_ " the yellow bird scolded from where it had settled on top of Hrish's head.

"I don't think it likes your tone, Juan," Mysho said. She had her helmet on now and was eyeing the bird with a faintly malevolent curiosity.

"It doesn't have to like my tone," Checya muttered. "As long as it knows Hrish will eat it if it looks at me funny."

"You speak hummingbird well enough to tell it that, do you?"

"Hey, Sarge, what have the others found?"

Mike shrugged. "Conn's fireteam got giant butterflies who think anyone with a gun is a god."

"Nobody's ever worshipped me as a god," Haysole complained.

"Can't think why not," Ressk muttered.

He got a very Human hand gesture and a smirk in return. "Plenty have knelt at my feet, though."

"Why would the Others collect up pre-space species like this?" Hollice asked. "Why bother making them habitats which will keep them alive longer? They don't eat other sentients, do they?"

"Who the fuk knows?" Juan grunted.

At the same moment, Hrish asked, without moving his head too much, "What's wrong with that?"

"Some people are prissy about their food," Ressk told him.

"It's not a farm, moron," Mashona said. "It's a zoo. That's why it's made of plastic. It's all been designed."

"Or a laboratory," Hollice suggested and they all went quiet.

"Like we'll ever find out," Mysho complained. "Anyone want to wager how long before the Elder Races get their _kaytis_ tied in a knot and take over? I say a week."

No one answered her and Ressk snorted. "Yeah, even the Humans won't touch that one."

 

 _4\. There is no situation to which Corporal Hollice cannot apply an archaic quotation._

"Sixty-seven species," Torin said with feeling, gesturing down the hillside to the heaving mass of confused aliens. "Sixty- _seven_ sentient species snatched up from pre-space planets, some of whom are still using spears."

"Ours is not to wonder why," Mike said, shrugging. "What now?"

"I need Ressk. We can't even start processing them until we can talk with them. In the meantime, get down there and sort them into reasonable groups. Split up any species who look like they might want to eat each other."

"What if they look like they want to eat us?"

"Introduce them to the Krai," Torin said and pushed off the rock she'd been leaning on. "I believe Lieutenant Chakma is about to start issuing some over-ambitious orders."

"Can't be having that," Mike agreed and left her to it.

His squad had all dropped down on the hilltop to await orders. Someone had produced a pair of dice and the di'Taykan were eyeing a nearby bush speculatively.

"Don't even think about it," Mike told them as he passed. "In this place it might just walk away and leave your _kayt_ blowing in the wind."

"If there's any blowing to be done-"

"Shut up and wait for orders, Haysole."

Hollice was gazing down on the plain with a speculative, slightly panicky expression, his mouth moving silently.

"Everything okay there, Corporal?"

"It's like-" Hollice started, waving his arm wildly at the scene below. "It's a- there's nothing in the world like- fuk it, I don't know."

"I'll just add that to your tab, shall I , Sarge?" Checya asked without looking up.

"On your feet, Marines. We've got orders."

As they marched downhill, a group of Ents shambled past below, their leafy heads swaying in the breeze.

"You can't see the wood for the trees!" Hollice burst out triumphantly.

"Give me my money back, Juan."

 

 _5\. There is nothing a di'Taykan won't fuk_

The Yelipi were bipedal, slightly shorter than the Krai, with bat-winged torsoes, almost no heads and a long, dense coating of bright pink fur. Mike couldn't tell if they had eyes under the fluff, but they were gripping nasty looking whips in the claws at their wing-tips so they clearly had some way to aim. They toddled forward to meet Mike as he approached, wings clapping together in what he hoped was welcome.

They sounded like bats too, a long stream of squeaks from a ovoid mouth in the fur at the tip of the torsos.

"Ressk!"

"Working on it, Sarge."

Mike cleared his throat and tapped his chest. "Sergeant Glicksohn." He pointed to the fireteam behind him. "Corporal Hollice. Private Mashona. Private Haysole-"

The lead Yelipi made an approving noise and opened its mouth enough to let a long, red tongue curl out lasciviously.

Haysole took a step back, hair flat and eyes lightening. Beside him, Mysho tried unsuccessfully to duck behind Hrish.

"Get it away from me!" Haysole was still backing away.

"What the fuk is wrong with you?" Checya demanded.

"It's a _trihasha!_ " Mysho wailed. "They're not supposed to be real!"

"What the fuk is- no, I don't even want to know. You two are-"

"They live under the bed," Haysole said urgently. "They live under the bed and, if you've been a bad kid-"

"A very, very bad kid!" Mysho added.

"They come out in the night-"

"And they suck off your toes!"

Checya made a sound that might have been, under other circumstances, a laugh.

The lead Yilipi gave out a pleased chittering and reached out towards Mysho, wetting the fur around its mouth a little more.

Some days Mike thought retirement couldn't come soon enough.

 

#

 

 _1\. There is no officer Staff Sergeant Kerr cannot ~~intimidate the fuk out of~~ turn to her will. _

The dinosaurs were standing at parade rest.

"Brontosauruses," Hollice was insisting quietly behind him.

"No, it's brontosauri," Checya argued.

"They call themselves the Juman," Ressk supplied. "That's their officer." He shrugged towards the centre of the line, where one of the shuttle-long lizards was wearing a more ornate breastplate than the rest.

"Wonder how they make armour that big?" Mysho mused.

"I wonder what lives on their home planet that _they_ need armour against."

"Huh."

One of the other dinosaurs had stretched its neck forward and was rumbling at the officer. The officer sank its wide feet a little deeper into the ground and roared back sharply. The noise shook the the earth around them and set off an outcry of rustling and creaking from the Ent encampment.

Very junior officer, then, Mike thought with a sigh. They might be here a while.

"I don't think they're going to move off the landing ground, Sarge."

"Pre-flight society," Ressk said. "They probably don't understand what a landing ground is."

"We'll still be fukking standing here next month."

"They'll have moved in a hour, at most," Mike said.

There was a sceptical silence behind him. Then, Checya said hopefully, "Money on it, Sarge?"

"Everything you've taken off me today," Mike said. "Doubled."

That shut them up for a while, but he was sure the bitching would start up again soon. The next mission better involve someone actually shooting at them.

Torin was walking out towards the line of dinosaurs.

"Is Staff going to beat some sense into them?" someone wondered aloud.

"She won't need to," Haysole scoffed.

The officer roared out a thunderous challenge. Torin listened with the appearance of infinite patience and then replied, her slate translating her words into a slightly tinnier roar.

Another thunderous challenge from the Juman officer, although this one seemed a little less self-assured.

Torin answered again and although they couldn't hear her words, Mike could feel every Marine in his troop standing a little straighter when they heard her tone.

The Juman officer hesitated and Mike kept his face as still and expressionless as Torin's. Then, dipping its head a little, the officer turned to rumble at the dinosaur at its shoulder who listened with the same impassive expression, as far as Mike could read it on a face bigger than his body.

A few minutes later, the Juman troops began to turn and march away. Mike waited for them earth to stop shaking before he turned round to face his troop and hold his hand out to collect his winnings.


End file.
